A couple of days after I posted Aunt C- January 15, 2005, she contacted me and we talked on the phone for a bit. I was telling her how I’d love to sit down and find out more about her experiences being one of Ray Charles backup singers, a Raelette. She quickly asked me..
You’ve seen the movie Ray..right?
Uhhh…no, I haven’t seen it yet.
Ohhh nephew! You’ve GOT to see it..it’s a wonderful story.
I was a bit embarrassed by my cinema ignorance. My wife and I rarely get a chance to go out to the movies and when we do, it’s usually with the kids. Of all the movies nominated for Academy Awards, I had only seen 3..The Passion of the Christ, which I happened to fall asleep on. This may sound strange, especially with me being a Christian and all..but it was kinda late in the evening when we went to see it and since I already knew how it was going to end, I kinda drifted off. Zzzzzz. My wife has actually come to expect me going to sleep in movies, but if I start snoring too loudly, she’ll give me that elbow to the side. I had also already seen the Incredibles, which I THOROUGHLY enjoyed, so much so, that I didn’t even begin to nod off, not even once! That in itself is a feat with me in movies. Sometimes me and my wife have this little game we play..I get in my Mr. Incredible suit and she gets in her Elastigirl-Ms. Incredible suit and we kinda…uhh..well, I guess our fetishes really aren’t appropriate for this post..but you get the picture..we still keep that spice going in our life!
This past weekend we ventured to Beaumont, Texas to spend Saturday night with some of our relatives so that we could attend church with them Sunday morning. Since everyone was all abuzz about Jamie Foxx being the favorite to win Best Actor for his performance and they happened to have the movie on DVD (not bootleg either!), we all settled down Saturday night to watch the movie. I realize that everyone hasn’t seen the movie and I’m not one to play movie spoiler, cuz I hate when people tell me stuff like..”Oh there’s this one part when the guy is hiding out in the bathroom..” before I’ve seen the movie, cuz I like to watch movies with an unbiased and unexpectant mind, waiting for the writer/directors art to unfold as they intended. But if a movie is already out on DVD, you can’t be tripping, that spoiler moratorium is over.
I’m sure when most Southside brothers watch the movie and if you asked them to explain what it was about, they’d probably say it was about a blind guy from Florida, who could play the piano, sing, did drugs and had a lot of women on the side and became very famous and successful. But my assessment of the movie goes a lot deeper than the topical observation, because I’m at a point in my life where I thirst to FEEL the experience. When I was at the E.K. Bailey Ministry Conference in Dallas this past summer, one of the ministers who was preaching said that EVERYONE should be able to ‘find YOURSELF in the Bible’. Of course this doesn’t mean you should start thinking that you’re Jesus or anything like that, but we all should strive to identify our personal lives with Scripture. Even beyond God’s Word, I can see the value of this morphing trait with life, people, music and movies. So as I was watching Ray, I found myself identifying to many of the life experiences that he was going through. Of course, I can’t FEEL what it’s like to be blind or even what it’s like to be able to play the piano or shoot heroin, but I could feel the struggle that Ray was desperately determined to overcome, when it came to finding himself through his God given talents.
Since Ray was not born blind and he had over 7 years of being able to see stored in his memory bank, a lot of his talents were based on his ability to listen with his ears and recreate in his mind with amazing levels of mimicry. So when you combine all of the wonderful musicians and singers that he grew up listening to, Ray had an uncanny ability to play or sound just like them. Of course, this ability to imitate will only take you so far, to really stretch the limits and be all you can be, you have to dig even deeper and find your true voice.
There’s this one particular part of the movie where Ray is in a struggle between the church folks who had outcries about him mixing God’s music, gospel, with the up-tempo, get up and shake your booty in the club jazz-R&B lyrics. When Ray is at his point of frustration, not knowing WHO to please, and even questioning if what he was doing was ‘wrong’ in the eyes of the Lord, his wife came over to him and consoled him and let him know that the Lord does not bless that which he does not approve…and Ray’s talents were definitely a God given blessing, no one could deny that fact. Now of course the hard line Bible thumpers will be quick to point out that the powers of Satan are very much at work in the world today, and a lot of things that we may conceive as blessings from God may actually be the work of the evil one. But we have this saying on the Southside which always rings true, “It ain’t what it say, it’s what it DO.”. The Bible is very descript, false prophets will always be revealed by the fruit that they bear (Matt 7:15-20). And when you see the legacy and the outpouring of love and happiness that Ray Charles has brought into this world, you know that his gift is anointed of God.
Now aside from Ray’s actually life, close attention has to be brought to the BRILLIANT job that Jamie Foxx did in making us all forget that we weren’t watching Ray Charles himself on the screen. From his mannerisms, tone and demeanor, Jamie nailed this one right on the head. It’s almost downright spooky, that this same gift of mimicry that was a part of Ray Charles life, is so evident in the spirit of Jamie Foxx.
Jamie surprised a lot of people, because so many had typecast him as a comedic actor, which goes back to his days on In Living Color as the disgustingly ghetto hood rat Wanda…”I GOTCHU!!” But my experience with Jamie goes even further back to 1989, when he was a contestant at the Bay Area Black Comedy Competition in Oakland, CA. At the time, Jamie was an up and coming standup comic and he was competing against the likes of D.L. Hughely and Yvette..I can’t remember her last name, but she's the chick that played the girl who claimed to look like Janet Jackson in the movie Friday that Smokey rebutted.."Man..that girl don’t look like no Janet Jackson! She look more like FREDDY Jackson!” The show was hosted by the late Robin Harris and wouldn’t you know, Jamie went on to win! One of his key pieces in his routine, was when he sang and mimicked a gospel minister so much so that you knew he already had some serious musical ability. Those who have followed his career may even know that he attended a college in San Diego on a classical piano scholarship, so you know, that boy got some SKILLS. But all in all, Jamie gave a killer performance in the movie, the script, as my Aunt C says, was very generous in it’s depiction of Ray and a lot of his ‘addictions’.
But through it all, we all can learn a wonderful story about a black boy growing up in abject poverty in rural Florida (he was actually born in Georgia though), being subjected to some early childhood trauma, having a mother who wouldn’t let him be comfortable living life as a ‘cripple’ and going out putting in DILIGENT work to augment and fruitfully multiply the talents that God had naturally blessed him with. Ray’s story reminds us that the only limits to the heights we can attain are self-imposed. He didn’t just sit on his musical talents and expect to be paid, Ray got out there and hustled, doing gigs, getting on the road, traveling that ‘chitlin circuit’, practicing..constantly grinding to be the best that he could be. And when you sit back and look at all the different people that his music has touched, from country rednecks, to down home blues black folks and all the different countries and cultures across the globe who have felt his music, we can see that Ray’s gift, was an undeniable blessing from the Lord. I’m sure if he could read this now, (if it was in Braille of course), he’d give one of his well known smiles, shake his head and say, “HELLO!”
